With the rapid development in mission system capabilities and intelligence information available in the aircraft cockpit, the aircrew's workload has rapidly increased as these new capabilities are added into the vehicle. Adding additional new capabilities to conventional control and display architecture results in a sub-optimal display of information, difficulty accessing information, and information overload for the pilot to process while flying the aircraft and performing the mission.
For example, conventional systems available to the air mission commander (AMC) of a flight of rotary wing aircraft severely limits the AMC's combat effectiveness. These conventional systems cause an undesirably high level of mental workload and less-than-ideal situation awareness for the AMC.
The dearth of information that is readily available to an AMC greatly increases their mental workload. In today's operations the AMC must contact other aircraft in the flight via radio to monitor their fuel, fuel burn rates, and stores. Moreover, the AMC calculates their craft's own fuel values to crosscheck the three-minute average burn rate generated by the flight management system. Specifically, the AMC will take a fuel reading at each of their mission profiles (i.e., specific points in the mission, such as waypoints or altitudes, and then take another reading at a predetermined interval (e.g., twenty minutes later). By subtracting the initial fuel reading from that taken later, the AMC can estimate their craft's hourly burn rate. This value is then compared to the value produced by the flight management system. This task is done while the AMC is piloting the aircraft.
On occasion the AMC might need to make changes to the flight plan, which forces real-time recalculations of fuel burn projections for the vehicles in the flight. For example, the AMC could get updated intelligence information that there are hostile forces located in the primary ingress route, requiring him/her to decide whether they have the fuel required to avoid the hostile by taking an alternate route. Similarly, the ground commander of the unit being picked up in an air assault mission could request a change in landing zone. These types of rapidly changing situations require the AMC to make additional decisions about mission-capability under significant time pressure, with potentially serious consequences—again still while piloting the aircraft.
Another undesirable characteristic of conventional systems is the less-than optimal situation awareness that the AMC has for certain elements of the tactical situation. First, much of the information that is important to an AMC is pre-briefed rather than real-time. The AMC conducts photograph reconnaissance of the primary and alternate landing zones prior to departure, but these areas can change by the time the flight actually reaches its destination. The AMC is pre-briefed with the latest intelligence prior to mission departure, but this information can quickly become outdated on a dynamic battlefield. Even if the AMC is given real-time intelligence information (e.g., base command calls on the radio to warn about a potential hostile unit), it can be difficult for the AMC to assimilate this information into their mental understanding of the situation, as it requires them to mark the location on a paper map and mentally integrate the flight's own position into this situation picture.
Another factor of conventional systems that contributes to the lower than optimal situation awareness experienced by the AMC is the absence of information about the specific locations of the other vehicles in the flight. Conventionally, each helicopter in the squadron is responsible for maintaining an appropriate distance from the helicopter in front of them. The lead helicopter sets the speed and altitude and each helicopter sets their position relative to the vehicle in front of them. Conventional systems fail to provide information about the specific locations of other vehicles, forcing each crewmember to help monitor the nearby airspace to ensure the vehicles are maintaining the necessary separation. This type of process requires a tremendous amount of crew coordination and is certainly less than ideal.